Claim to Fame

Carter Moore is a man about town — but only because of his occupation. He's an aide to the mayor, which means that he gets to go to ribbon cutting ceremonies, business meetings, sometimes fancy parties. But mostly, he just gets the mayor his favorite sort of donut and coffee every morning. Beyond that, Carter is known for his wilder days at UTD when he studied business and his adorably chubby baby face.

Biography

Carter Alexander Moore was born to John and Mary (Jamesson) Moore, a well-to-do couple from Colorado. College sweethearts, the Moores married shortly after they both graduated. Their eldest, Julie, was born shortly afterwards. She was the apple of her parents' eyes, the one who could (and still CAN do) no wrong at all. After that, Carter came along. He was doted on very briefly before Marina was born. Growing up, Carter became The Unfavourite. He was widely ignored by both parents in favor of his sisters. There were a few reasons for that. One, the Jamesson side of the family were old and powerful witches that generally passed their powers down to daughters. Rarely did a son inherit the family power. By sheer chance, John was a witch too, although there was no hereditary link on the Moore side of the family. Naturally both parents assumed that their daughters would inherit these powers. The other reason was that Carter was a defective child. After a particularly unsettling episode when Carter was three and he didn't stop bleeding after his sister pushed him onto some jagged rocks while at play, Carter was found to be both hemophiliac and anemic. The hemophilia was luckily moderate; but that didn't rule out the possibility of ever needing a transfusion or getting cut one too many times in the same sitting and bleeding out. As a result of his fragility, Carter isolated himself from other children. He was generally found in the cafeteria doodling at recess instead of socializing.

Middle school was a tumultuous time for Carter. Not only did he have peer pressure to face, he was slowly fading into the background at home. And the fact that his older, more talented sister was getting all the praise and love that he wanted. Carter started hanging around the computer lab a little more often at school, sometimes staying after just to mess around and play games. It beat the alternative, which was to go home and be ignored by his parents while they heaped praise and compliments upon Julie and Marina. He soon started finding reasons to be out of the house. AV Club, D&D, whatever he could find. It didn't matter if he was interested it in or not, really. As long as it kept him out of the house. Soon he only started coming home long enough to eat, do homework, sleep, and leave for school the next morning. High school was even more rough for Carter. He suffered late puberty. And then he got his powers. His parents had expected his sisters to get them. When the male heir inherited? Major point of contention for him. Especially his sister Julie. It's the one thing that he can hold over her head, even now. His mother begrudgingly taught him the ins and outs of family witchcraft, starting with protection talismans first. Carter started to hang out with the new age stoner group. It only seemed fitting. This carried on into college. He was accepted to the University of Dallas, Texas, and moved there as soon as possible. After a while of some hardcore partying, Carter started to take his academics seriously. He eventually graduated with a major in business, minor in medical studies. After that he was recommended by one of his professors to the mayor, who hired him as an assistant. Carter keeps honing his witchcraft as well, hoping that it'll prove useful in the long run.

Character Details

Carter is a neutral party in most everything a lot of the time, though he normally tries to do the right thing by everyone — something that seems to recall for him the saying 'the road to Hell is paved with good intentions'. He's rarely capable of doing anything right, even when he's trying to. The consequences of this are equal parts hilarious and awful. It's hard to take Carter seriously at times, especially when he wants to be taken seriously. Carter is generally congenial to everyone (if not totally neutral), even when he doesn't want to be. He's good at hiding his true emotions from all save for in front of the few people who truly bring the worst out in him. Carter would probably be a more likeable person if he didn't try SO hard. He's at his best when his defenses are down. Consequently, that's when he's at his weakest in every sense of the word. Carter's own failures and underachievements gnaw at his insides even at the best of times. Paired with his insecurities about everything, he's a bit of a walking time bomb. Carter views his abilities as a disappointment. Regardless, he feels it's his duty to practice often and practice well. Witchcraft may be one of the only things he doesn't really suck at, much to his chagrin. As for vampires? Carter could care less. He's really happy and everything for his boss, who seems to love them so much, but Carter just… doesn't care. He's as disaffected by them as everything else in his mundane existence.

John Moore, father

The typical patriarch of their family. John has always put a heap of pressure on Carter to do well and be the best Carter he can be. Needless to say, it all just manifests itself as a hollow pit in the center of Carter's stomach. John is a moderately successful small business owner, manufacturing and printing business cards in his Aspen office. If nothing else, Carter gets discounted (certainly not free) business cards from his dad.

Mary Jamesson-Moore, mother

Carter's mother Mary is not his favorite of people either. He's just a disappointment to his mother, considering that he inherited his powers from her, and she from her mother, and so on and so forth. Yeah, he was supposed to be a girl. Or at least, the powers were supposed to be given to one of hi sisters. Not him, at any rate. She taught Carter everything she knows about witchcraft rather begrudgingly.

Julie Moore, elder sister

Carter's older sister Julie was the prom queen and the valedictorian. She's now a successful business woman. Julie is everything Carter has always been expected to be and has never quite lived up to. She's made the right friends, the right connections, and Carter has nada. It's no big secret that the two don't get along and Carter is Julie's personal punching bag in more ways than one — he still can't even win a fight against her, well into their twenties. And yet Julie is disgustingly envious of Carter's powers. It's the one leg up he has on her, one he'll rub in her face every chance he gets.

Marina Moore, younger sister

One of the only people in his family Carter remotely gets along with and bothers to talk to on a regular basis. Marina is a few years younger than him and has never seen Carter as a pathetic thorn in her side the way that Julie and Mary do. She loves her older brother, and Carter loves Marina. Even though she's not a witch like she was supposed to be, she doesn't mind. Like Carter, Marina doesn't like pressure, making them closer to two peas in a pod than anyone in their family likes to admit.

Computer Savvy

He's not a hacker by anyone's standards but he's good at repairing computers and building them. Carter is also good at doing Internet research, something which has proven useful at his job time and time again.

Diplomacy

Working in politics means that Carter has had to learn to play nice. He's cool-headed and neutral when dealing with opposing parties. Everything must remain peaceful and Carter is often sent to ensure that it is in fact peaceful and that no ties are broken. He's a 'smoother over'. Of course, there are some people that Carter just can't keep his cool around, which creates interesting situations to say the least.

Office Skills

Note-taking, filing, making coffee in the morning, looking good in a business suit. All part of what he learned while majoring in business at the University of Texas, Dallas. Sure, there are more important skills that go along with this (like how to properly manage an office, what tax forms need to be filled out, etc) but they hardly ever come into play. At least not until he gets a promotion from aide.

Pharmacology

Sort of. This is part of what Carter studied in college. He was seriously planning on becoming a pharmacist when he instead decided to take business courses — which he probably would have had to do anyway. Nevertheless, Carter knows a lot about pills, ointments, what have you.

Witchcraft

Carter is a witch in the most literal of senses. His powers came into full swing his senior year of high school and he's had some time to practice with him. His strongest draw is the intricate science of protection spells and charms. He's gotten good at protection and makes his own talismans & charms out of beads, leather, whatever he can scrounge up at a craft store. More recently he has learned about warding. While he seems to have a knack for it, it's proven very difficult to master. He may have years to go before he can claim to have mastered warding. Of course, witchcraft doesn't come without it's downsides. He's secretive about it and even the smallest of rituals leaves him more tired than he normally is. A larger ritual or more powerful talisman/charm can leave him immediately drained for days.

Anemia

Carter is terribly anemic. On his bad days, he has fainting spells, heart palpitations, and asthma attacks from the stress. Even on his good days, he's nothing to write home about. He's weak, stringy, and he bruises easily.

Baby Face

People rarely believe that Carter is in his twenties. He doesn't look a day past seventeen or so, and it's a major point of contention for him. It's earned him the name Baby Face around the offices, something which he does not enjoy at all. He gets carded constantly when he goes to bars or tries to even see an R-rated movie.

Cowardice

Carter laughs in the face of danger, and then hides underneath a table until it goes away. Not only is he not a combat go-to-guy, he's hemophiliac. When someone presents an immediate threat to his person, his general response is to flee in the other direction. To some people it would seem like a good reason, what with the threat of bleeding out and all. But it's generally just regarded as cowardly.

Hemophilia

Besides his anemia, Carter has moderate hemophilia. Even simple dental procedures leave him bleeding heavily. This, paired with his anemia, is quite dangerous. More often than not Carter is very careful about what he does. Even the smallest paper cut could have him bleeding like a stuck hog. And if he's not bleeding, he's bruising because of the anemia. Carter generally refuses to take aspirin or other painkillers because of the anti-coagulants in them, leaving himself to suffer if he's hurt or ill. On top of this, it means he carries the gene to pass it on to future generations of Moores.

Intolerance

A total lightweight. He can't imbibe moderate or heavy amounts of drugs or liquor without hitting the floor and suffering a nasty hangover later. The effects of illicit substances hit him much harder than most and in a shorter period. It doesn't take him much at all to get buzzed.

Weak Willed

On top of Carter's physical inadequacies, he's easily controlled. Someone who has a good knowledge of simple psychology could probably easily influence him to do what they want or to get him to believe what they want. For a period, anyway. While Carter is easily controlled, he's not stupid.